i94bar1200x80

young charlatans

  • prison column(Pondering the passing of time, punk, and the “new” Young Charlatans record, “'1978”, released on Eminent Vinyl, and featuring a short interview with Harry Howard.)

    UK writer Kris Needs expresses it best, I think. In his introduction to his 2010 “Dirty Water 2. More Birth of Punk Attitude” CD compilation, Needs denies trying to nail down "any kind of definitive punk thesis", and instead tries "to show how the age-old attitude which shaped it could not be confined to any one time, place or big bang”.

    He goes on to describe punk as "an eternal spirit", explaining that the "desire to achieve or express personal freedom is one major uniting theme, whether an attitude born out of everyday struggle or desire to upend existing musical forms, which could spark in anyone from guitar-toting wild men and electronic alchemists to street corner finger-poppers or expressionistic black music movements such as bebop and free jazz."

    Feel free to disagree, of course.

  • young charlatans cvr1978 - Young  Charlatans (Eminent Vinyl)

    If you go on YouTube you can see a remarkable clip of two 18-year-old kids, Rowland S Howard and Ollie Olsen, being interviewed by the ABC. As the teenagers walk down St Kilda Road in Melbourne, they are jeered at for looking like aliens with art school aesthetics.  

    It was 1978 and a vastly different time in Australia. In the beige, conservative world ruled by the Tories and the Country Party. Every second house had porcelain ducks on its wall and a framed picture of Queen Elizabeth the 2nd. The Robert Menzies vision of Australia ruled and the fashion mindset embraced Dennis Lillee’s porn star moustache and safari suits.